Celebrate top ranking in AP score growth

Alabama usually doesn't rank No. 1 on many scales associated with education. However, over the past six years Alabama has had more growth in Advanced Placement math, science and English exam scores than any other state.

Thanks to an initiative launched by the private sector and now funded by the Alabama State Department of Education in partnership with A+ College Ready, we can say with confidence that Alabama is No. 1.

AP courses are essentially college-level courses taught in high school to students who want or need more of a challenge. Think Honors classes on steroids. Calculus, physics, chemistry, English literature and statistics are just a few of the courses offered. These courses involve much more writing and critical thinking, and they give students a chance to master college-level work in the more nurturing environment of their high school.

College and Career Readiness, as the name implies, identifies whether students can enter college and be successful right away. This is an important initiative in Alabama right now, and for good reason: Only half of our high school graduates go to college, and of those, a third of them have to take a remedial class of some kind once they get there.

Remedial classes cost as much as regular classes, but they aren't credit-bearing. So students in these classes have to pay more money to go to college than their peers who are better prepared.

AP courses can help fix this.

AP Exams are graded on a 5-point scale. A 3 or above counts as a "qualifying" score, and can earn a student 3 hours of college credit. Alabama has had 136 percent growth in qualifying scores on math science and English AP exams since 2008, versus 49 percent in the nation as a whole. That makes Alabama No. 1.

Over the past six years, students in the Alabama State Department of Education/A+ College Ready Initiative have earned over 20,000 qualifying scores on math, science and English AP exams. When you consider the average cost of a 3-hour college course including fees is around $1,800, those scores translate to over $36 million in potential tuition savings if those students choose to go to college.

Here is the beautiful thing about AP classes, though. Even if students don't earn a qualifying score, the College Board has shown in several studies that those students do better in college than their peers. That is a key feature of the ALSDE/A+ College Ready Initiative – expanded access. By providing grants to schools that allow additional funding for teacher training and equipment, schools can greatly increase the size of their AP programs. Increasing numbers of students have stepped up to enroll in AP because they are hungry for this opportunity.

Several schools in the Montgomery and surrounding area have received the A+ College Ready grant, and as a result have seen increases in AP enrollment and qualifying scores. As a byproduct, ACT scores are going up, more students are going to college, and fewer are enrolling in remedial classes.

Tiny Excel High School is a great example. This past year, they went from offering no AP courses to 4, enrolled 87 students and 14 of them received a qualifying score. These students and teachers were pioneers – the first to experience and teach this level of rigor -- and they have changed the culture of that school forever.

In short, the ALSDE/A+ College Ready Initiative works. Schools within this program see significant gains in qualifying scores, but more importantly they expose a greater number of their students to college-level work.

I cannot say with certainty how these amazing results will help propel our state to the place we want it to be. However, I can say that Alabama's students outpaced every other state in the union the past six years in increasing their qualifying scores on arguably the most challenging high school exams given in the country.